Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey

Over the last decade, the international development community has recognized that rural and peri-urban households in lower- and middle-income countries use the same sources of water for both domestic and productive uses. To increase access to these water resources, governments and NGOs introduced the concept of multiple-use water services (MUS). As a proposed development strategy, MUS takes people’s multiple water needs as the starting point for planning and investing in new water services or upgrading existing domestic or productive systems traditionally designed for single uses. While studies have suggested benefits of MUS, such as improved water productivity and economic gains for subsistence farming communities, evidence remains context dependent. The research community has yet to examine the specific influence of MUS on household water insecurity, defined as the inadequate, unreliable, or unaffordable access to water necessary for a healthy life. That is, does MUS reduce experiences with water insecurity at the household scale? To address this critical question, the study examined the correlation between household water insecurity, measured by the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) scale, and household use of single water sources for both domestic and productive purposes using data from a survey of 1,082 households in Mali, West Africa. The study finds that households practicing year-round MUS report significantly lower water insecurity than seasonal MUS households. These findings indicate an association, rather than a causal relationship, between sustained MUS practice and lower household water insecurity and suggest that reliable, year-round water availability may underpin both. However, MUS is not a panacea for household water insecurity, and improving household water security will require attention to the reliability, availability, and seasonal stability of water services in addition to support for multiple water uses.

California's efforts to advance the Human Right to Water are constrained by limited household‐level data on water insecurity. Using the 2021 CalSpeaks statewide probability survey ( n = 628) this study offers the first representative look at water insecurity across California households. Results reveal significant water‐related struggles: approximately 23% of respondents worried about having enough water to meet their household needs, 15% worried about perceived health impacts from water quality, and 7% struggled with affordability. Negative binomial regression models show that water insecurity is not randomly distributed: households with non‐white residents, households which rely on private or small water companies for water service or receive public assistance experience disproportionately higher water insecurity. Sensitivity analyses indicate that some predictors—such as household size and employment—are more strongly associated with frequent water insecurity experiences, underscoring the need for multidimensional monitoring. These findings highlight that system‐level compliance metrics substantially underestimate household‐level challenges and reinforce the need for policies that address affordability, quality, accessibility, worry, and trust to achieve California's Human Right to Water.

U.S. news media have been criticized for having false balance in their coverage of climate change science. Historically, news segments overrepresented views contrary to scientific consensus, though recent evidence suggests this false balance has lessened. Here, we assess the balance of positive and negative views of climate change policies, compared to public opinion, in news coverage from seven major U.S. television networks. By this measure, we find aggregately balanced coverage: positive and negative views of policy are represented roughly proportionately to public opinion. However, we find that two-thirds of news segments about climate change do not mention policy at all. Additionally, some news networks are highly polarized in their coverage, especially Fox News and CNN. Comparing these results to contemporaneous survey data on U.S media diets suggests that many Americans consume biased media coverage of climate change policy views, even if coverage is not biased on the aggregate.

Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political‐economic and hydro‐climatic contexts. Emphasizing the importance of delineating the scale of analysis, we highlight distinct system configurations and the prevalence of hybridity. Increased specificity about dimensions and scale can clarify how the character of, or changes to, a given system impact users, which is critical to assessing their implications for water security, sustainability, and equity. We conclude with recommendations for future research to analyze the opportunities and challenges associated with different water system configurations. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance

The U.S. has moved beyond peak water security. Infrastructural degradation, institutional inertia, and climate change are reducing the ability of households and communities to benefit from near-universal safe, adequate, affordable, sustainable water services. Yet, current supply-side research tools, that focus largely on system performance, are not equipped to measure the prevalence and lived experiences of household water insecurity, thus limiting the evidence available to policymakers, utilities, and communities to make decisions about water services. We discuss how demand-side metrics, such as household-level water insecurity scales validated for high-income contexts, such as the U.S., can help stakeholders to better identify local variation in user water issues, guide resource allocation, and improve hazard and disaster response. Targeted infrastructure investments informed by these metrics can enhance water security, reduce reliance on emergency social services, and promote public health and economic vitality. To address 21^st-century water challenges effectively, we must integrate experiential measures into local, regional, and national water assessments.

Background: New metrics of household water insecurity have been validated for low- to middle-income countries, but it is unclear how these measurements apply to the experiences of people living in high-income countries. This project aims to develop and validate a novel metric for household water insecurity experiences in the United States (HWISE-USA) using a cross-sectional design and data from the Southwest, Midwest, and Western regions. Methods: We outline the protocol for the development and validation of a novel household water insecurity scale for the United States to address this scientific need, including the following key steps: (1) item development through literature and theory; (2) pre-testing of items and expert review; (3) scale development and item reduction; and (4) scale validation. To assess the performance of the HWISE-USA scale, we will follow the same scale development analytics on a separate, quasi-nationally-representative U.S. sample. The scale will be generated from household survey data collected from communities at risk of water insecurity throughout the United States. Discussion: We explain how a novel metric of water insecurity experiences for households in the United States has important implications for resource allocation, structural interventions, public health and infrastructure planning, and reductions in inequalities. Registration: osf.io/zvqs4

In this paper, we consider how learning networks build capacity for system transformation. We define learning networks as inter‐organizational voluntary collaboratives that nurture professional expertise and describe their potential to catalyse systemic change by disrupting old habits, fostering new relationships, and providing freedom to experiment. We conducted a parallel study of four learning networks, which vary in age since founding from 2 to 25 years, applying three exploratory questions across our cases. We conclude by considering how learning networks can foster transformative capacity within social‐ecological systems when they are designed and facilitated with a soft touch so that network members in different sites have the freedom to define their place and purpose within their system, as well as their role in bringing about a desired transformation. We suggest that system transformation is not just the sum of similar efforts at different sites and scales or a least common denominator between them but is emergent from interaction between the partially shared understandings of actors within and between sites, and across network scales. A well‐designed network is a learning system that encompasses these multiple perspectives, and good netweaving mediates different ways of system knowing without collapsing them into one perspective. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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